Retrievers: A Beginner’s Guide to Hunt Tests

Hunt tests have become such a fixture on the retriever landscape that it’s easy to forget that they’re a relatively recent phenomenon. The first organization to sponsor hunt tests, the North American Hunting Retriever Association, got its start in 1984; the other organizations that hold hunt tests, the Hunting Retriever Club and the American Kennel Club (AKC), followed suit shortly thereafter.

Hunt tests are designed to simulate the situations a working retriever might reasonably be expected to face in the field—basically, a combination of marked and blind retrieves from both land and water. Dogs are tested against a standard and judged on a pass/fail basis. You don’t compete against the other guy and his dog; you compete against yourself, hoping that the quality of the training you’ve put in will enable your dog to perform at the required level.

All of these organizations offer tests for dogs in early, intermediate, and advanced, or “finished,” stages of training. In AKC terminology, these levels are known as Junior Hunter, Senior Hunter, and Master Hunter. As an individual dog works through his tests, he’s given a numerical score by the judges on a one-to-10 scale. The score reflects the retriever’s comportment in such categories as marking, style, perseverance, and trainability. This last category includes steadiness at the line, which for all intents and purposes is compulsory at the Senior and Master levels; at the Junior level you’re allowed to physically restrain your dog before sending him for a retrieve. To pass, no score can be lower than 5, and the average of all scores has to be at least 7.

Four passes are required to earn a Junior or Senior Hunter title, while the Master Hunter requires five passes. You can skip a level, or even two, but if your dog doesn’t have his Junior Hunter title, he has to get five passes at the Senior level in order to earn his Senior Hunter title. Similarly, a dog competing at the Master level without a Senior Hunter title needs six passes to earn his Master Hunter title.

At the fall test hosted by the Manitowoc County Kennel Club near Valders, Wisconsin, I watched as the Master Hunter entrants were put through their paces in the land series—a triple mark, the first of which was a walk-up, followed by a double-blind. Then, when the next dog came to the line, the dog that had just completed the series was expected to perform an honor (sitting quietly and steadily until the dog at the line was sent).

Was every dog perfect? Not by a long shot, including some being handled by professional trainers. I saw one pro-handled dog break like a green pup within moments of coming to the line. The point is that everyone’s been there. If your dog screws up, as he almost invariably will at some point, you need to take it in stride, correct what went wrong, and come out swinging next time.

At the completion of the land series I asked John McKellop, a sportsman from Cadillac, Michigan, who has participated in hunt tests with his golden retrievers since 1996, what advice he would give to someone looking to get into the game. He stressed the importance of attending several events to familiarize yourself with how they work and what’s expected of you and your dog.

“You need to know what you’re training towards,” he explained. “The best advice I can offer is to try to connect with someone who’s experienced and successful who can serve as a mentor. You can certainly do it on your own, but it can be a painful learning process.”

McKellop warned, though, that if you’re not careful hunt tests can become an addiction—and not an inexpensive one. “Like a lot of us,” he laughed, “I got into hunt tests because I wanted a better hunting dog. Now I spend a lot more time competing in hunt tests than I do hunting. I’m hooked, and I’m afraid I’ve hooked some other people as well. As addictions go, though, this isn’t the worst one to have.”